This invention is in the art of woven fence wire handling and installing equipment.
Interest in apparatus which is attachable to a farm tractor for handling rolled woven wire fencing is evident as far back as 1959. In that year, Parker and Taylor patented a rather complicated apparatus capable of picking up a roll of woven fence wire on the ground and then rotating it into a vertical position. As also disclosed by Parker and Taylor in U.S. Pat. No. 2,914,270, a tractor""s power take-off can be used to turn the roll so as to stretch the wire during installation.
Griffin, U.S. Pat. No. 3,048,348, which issued Aug. 7, 1962, discloses a fence stringing and stretching implement which provides a frame on which a reel of woven fence wire is mounted and a hydraulic cylinder which provides the force for stretching the woven fence wire.
Holub, U.S. Pat. No. 2,416,585, which issued Feb. 25, 1947, discloses a reel for fence wire which is mounted on a drawbar of a tractor. Holub uses a spring bias arm for stretching the wire.
Moon et al., U.S. Pat. No 5,163,634, disclose a fence stretching apparatus also mounted on the rear of a tractor. In Moon""s combination, a reel of fencing material is held by a shaft in a vertical position in a triangular frame; and an hydraulic cylinder is used to stretch the fencing material just prior to securing it to the fence post.
The primary object of the present invention is to provide an improved fence handling and installing apparatus which is low in cost and easy to use both in open fields and in wooded areas,
A further object of the present invention it to provide such an apparatus which does not require the use of an hydraulic cylinder in order to stretch woven fence wire. Not only is the cost lowered when an hydraulic cylinder is no longer needed but also its elimination simplifies the installation of the apparatus on a tractor.
A still further object is to provide an improved fence handling and installing apparatus which, during the installation process, straightens the wire fencing, overcoming its natural tendency to roll up again;
In accordance with the present invention, there is provided a tractor-pulled apparatus having a rectangular frame, a hinged gate and structures rigidly attached to the frame for guiding wire fencing as it is being pulled through the gate, while it is partially open, from a roll mounted on a shaft within the apparatus. The gate and guiding structures help to straighten the wire fencing and keep it from reverting to a curved shape as it is being unrolled. The stretching of the fencing material is accomplished by attaching a section of wire fencing, which has been pulled rearwardly of the gate, to a fence post, locking the gate so as to prevent any further discharge of wire fencing therethrough, and then moving the tractor slowly forward until the desired amount of tension has been applied to the wire fencing.